ENGLAND IN 17TH AND 18TH CENTUEIES 23 



capital ready to apply them. Certain fundamental 

 economic difficulties, however, stood in the way, and 

 it is proposed to consider how they were removed, and 

 with what results. 



Prior to the seventeenth century the traditional 

 system of farming in England was what was known 

 as the ''open-field" system. The land of a village 

 was usually divided into three fields, one of which 

 was under cereals, one under beans and peas and the 

 third fallow. In each of these fields the farmers 

 were assigned plots, according to their rights, consist- 

 ing of strips of land. In order to divide equally the 

 good and bad, the well and ill situated fields, the 

 strips allotted to each man did not He together, but 

 were intermixed and scattered. The cultivated area 

 was for part of the year fenced off from the rest, but 

 after harvest the temporary fence was removed and 

 the village cattle allowed to graze over the whole. 

 Sometimes plots of meadow were allotted by ballot or 

 otherwise to individuals for temporary use for hay 

 cutting ; but the greater part of the live stock picked 

 up a precarious living on the common grazing grounds 

 and on the weedy stubbles from which the crop had 

 been removed. Under the communal system no 

 regular development of the land was possible, nor 

 could improvement in the breeding or feeding of live 

 stock take place. As early as the reign of Elizabeth 

 writers enlarge on the superior yield of enclosed land 

 and the obstacles to successful farming presented by 

 the open-field system, the perpetual disputes, the 



